Inadvertent Amusement
by JasperK
Summary: Meryl, Milly and Wolfwood passing the time laughing at a certain someone (Vash, Milly, Meryl, Wolfwood)


"Um, Mister Vash?"

"Yes?" He raised his eyes from where he had been reading the newspaper. He did not mind the interruption. He had finished all the interesting articles about people, even the sad ones and the obituaries. Next he had read the comics and the funnies. Now he was trawling through the rest, Milly had disturbed his perusal of a very dull article about a tomas auction.

"Er."

Milly, with her blue eyes wide, was looking at something on his shoulder. He hastily glanced down; taking some of the insects on Gunsmoke lightly could be the last thing one did. However, there was nothing there.

"Did you hear that report on the satellite just now?" Meryl sat down at the table with her breakfast tray, distracting them.

"Oh yes!" Milly exclaimed. "The one where it said Mister Vash was in Valdour when he is really here in, mmmh!"

Meryl clapped her hand over her friend's mouth.

"Oops. Sorry." Milly mumbled, and threaded her finger through the delicate china loop on her teacup. The conversation drifted.

After a while, Vash realised both girls were watching him. Meryl had an ill-concealed smile on her face as she ate her bacon and eggs. They were looking at his neck. He scratched at his chin as if it were an unconscious gesture. He could not feel anything, and he had not cut himself shaving that morning.

"Um." Milly began, again looking at his shoulder.

He checked again, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

"Hey! Needle Noggin! Where's my grub?" Wolfwood dragged out the fourth chair at the table and flopped into it.

"Wha?"

"Order it yourself just like we all did." Meryl told him and scowled down at her food.

"Sheesh! Look who woke up on the wrong side..."

Vash stood up and mistakenly on purpose stepped on Wolfwood's foot. Meryl was beginning to smoulder and Vash did not feel like a fight so early.

"Ow! That hurt!"

He dodged Wolfwood's angry swipe, and rewarded the priest with a wide-eyed innocent stare.

"Just getting coffee!"

He walked off, as Wolfwood tried to ignore up the pain in his foot while smiling suavely at Milly.

Wolfwood walked past him on the way to order his food. The glance the priest gave him was initially a challenge, but the glare got lost in a badly hidden smile as he turned away. Vash worriedly patted his coat and checked his shoulders and chin again. Did he have some left over breakfast on his face? What was everyone finding so amusing? He tried to see his reflection in the glass cabinet beside the coffee machine, then in the shined metal of the cash register, but he could not see anything out of the ordinary.

Wolfwood was tucking in to a stack of egg-laden toast smothered in ketchup. The priest glanced at the girls as Vash sat down, and suddenly everyone was grinning at him. Vash ran his right hand over his face, but felt nothing.

"What's up?" He asked, in a jovial tone, he did not mind being the butt of a friendly jibe.

For some reason that made them all crack up.

Meryl put both hands over her mouth and giggled. Milly laughed happily and Wolfwood sprayed food across the table.

"Mister Priest!"

Wolfwood choked the remainder of his mouthful down and hastily chased the escaped food with his fork. With an apologetic glance at Milly he covered the rest in a serviette, and kicked Vash under the table.

"Ow! Ow! OW! What was that for?" Vash whined.

Wolfwood mumbled something that sounded a great deal like 'for existing,' and Vash plastered a bright smile on his face and reached across to his newspaper. He opened it at random and held it up so that he could hide behind it. He knew Wolfwood had meant it only in the manner of light frustration, but the words jarred deep in his soul. He blinked rapidly. It did not help that on the darkest moments in his life he thought the same thing. He took a slow breath and let the hurt ease. He then surreptitiously examined his face and neck again, but could feel nothing out of the ordinary. He checked his ears too just in case; one never knew where rice could end up.

He became aware of whispers on the other side of the newspaper.

"You think he's noticed?" Wolfwood asked.

"No." Milly said, amused.

"If he wasn't the great Humanoid Typhoon, I would say he was trying to hide." Meryl's voice was lightly teasing.

He began to feel a little indignant, and lowered the newspaper.

"I'm not!" He insisted.

The three of them looked down at the paper. He glanced down too. Not only had he put it down in the middle of Wolfwood's newly sprinkled table decoration, it was also upside down. Oops. Ah. How to deal with this?

"Hee." He breathed, grinning inanely at them.

Wolfwood managed to get a serviette over his mouth in time, earning him an approving glance from Milly before she laughed prettily. Meryl, however gave him a small questioning gaze before tentatively smiling, as if to let him know she understood. No! What had she seen? He felt his heart clench with pain. It was okay that he carried his own troubles, but he did not need anyone else to shoulder the burden. That was not fair. He deserved every moment of it, and for them to shoulder the burden doubled his.

"You think we should tell him?" Meryl asked with an amused lilt in her tone.

Oddly, her voice soothed his anguished panic.

Milly and Wolfwood looked up from where they had been eyeing each other to the exclusion of the all else in the world.

"Nah." Wolfwood smiled slowly. "He can spend the day guessing."

"That's not very nice Mister Priest." Milly scolded gently.

"Neither was standing on my foot!" Wolfwood grumbled, but fell silent as Milly widened her eyes, troubled.

"You tell Mister Vash, Meryl."

Meryl raised a hand to the collar of her white cape.

"When you got dressed this morning, you buttoned your coat up from the bottom, didn't you?"

Vash stared at her in astonishment.

"How do you know?"

Wolfwood gave a dirty laugh, and Vash caught a muttered 'peeking.' Meryl pounded him before Vash could even raise his foot. Wolfwood clutched his arm and chuckled.

"The last button by your collar is sticking up."

Vash reached up to his collar and felt the hard button on the thick material and realised it had no clasp to pair it. He had misaligned all his buttons.

"Ah!" He laughed; relieved it was something as simple as his absent-minded dressing that had amused his friends.


End file.
